I know, I know, you’d rather watch the Grey Cup game, so I’ll make this quick. Yesterday, Ms Soapbox and a friend judged the final round in the Sir Winston Churchill High School Debate Competition. The competition was hosted by the Alberta Debate and Speech Association and The Winston Churchill Society and included teams from ...

How much longer do we have to put up with this nonsense? The Alberta Legislature has been in session for eight days and the UCP is using Question Period to test-drive political slogans. Jason Kenney UCP leader Ms Soapbox’s personal favourite is the UCP’s claim: “We lead, they follow”. The UCP’s “lead” translates into something ...

PHOTOS: Part of the Jackpine Oilsands Mine north of Fort McMurray, formerly owned by Shell and now operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (Photo: Pembina Institute.) Below: Author Kevin Taft. Guest Post by Kevin Taft Kevin Taft is a best-selling author, well-known speaker, and former provincial politician in Alberta. He served as an Alberta Liberal ...

One of the key faulty assumptions underlying Canada’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline is that Alberta’s bitumen is being unfairly discounted by U.S. buyers and that its price can be maximized by getting it to Asian markets. The post Approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline was based on faulty assumptions appeared first ...

PHOTOS: No Smoking … no kidding! An oil tanker sits in a Spanish port. B.C. environmentalists don’t want to see scenes like this on their coast. (Photo: Wikipedia Commons) A lot of Albertans believe they’re going to have to. Below: Report Author David Hughes and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Whether or not it is actually ...

Thursday, June 1, 2017 Kinder Morgan’s risky Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion just got a whole lot riskier, just as the company was taking steps to offload some of that risk onto Canadian investors. That is why this week, we released a new legal brief outlining the legal risk for the project. read more

PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Health Minister and Deputy Premier Sarah Hoffman announce a new hospital on Edmonton’s south side. Alberta Health services CEO Verna Yiu is visible on the right. Below: Infrastructure Minister Brian Mason, controversial B.C. environmentalist Tzeporah Berman and some of the crowd at the hospital announcement. We may have been ...

PHOTOS: U.S. President Donald Trump – he’s lookin’ at you, Canada. (Photo by Gage Skidmore, Flickr.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. If Alberta’s conservatives imagined U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision immediately after his election last November to push the Keystone XL Pipeline project forward would provide an opening for them to attack the Alberta NDP ...

Tuesday, March 14, 2017 It’s been a while since we’ve updated you about Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker expansion project (KMX). A lot has happened in the past few months, so here’s a snapshot of where we’re at. It’s been a while since we’ve updated you about Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and ...

PHOTOS: Alberta Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell, clad in a purple official gown, reads the NDP Government’s third Speech from the Throne in the Legislature in Edmonton yesterday afternoon. Below: Party crasher Jason Kenney, Labour Minister Christina Gray (Dave Cournoyer photo) and Opposition Leader Brian Jean. Alberta’s New Democratic Party Government delivered its third Speech from ...

PHOTOS: One of the few photos your blogger could find of Dan Miller (found on the Internet, original source unknown). Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan and B.C. Premier Christy Clark (from the Canadian Encyclopedia). There’s more evidence out of British Columbia this week that Rachel Notley’s social licence approach to ...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project spurred anger. We need strategy to stop the project. The post Trudeau’s approval of Kinder Morgan pipeline a call for Standing Rock-style intervention appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016 Staff Counsel Eugene Kung recounts an action-packed week preparing for – and responding to – the federal government's approval of the Kinder Morgan tar sands pipeline and tankers proposal. This is your friend Eugene, blogging from 9,753 metres in the sky. I’m writing on my way home after a full and ...

PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Kananaskis, Alberta, in April 2016 (photo by Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta). Below: Anti-pipeline demonstrators in British Columbia (Rabble photo by Alyse Kotyk). They may not find it reassuring that Alberta conservatives are praying for their success. Without the Alberta NDP’s climate strategy, ...

Here is one of what will be many stories. So, start with some facts and probabilities. Northern Gateway is dead. That’s a piece of good news. Line 3 nobody heard of until today, so who knows? Also, who knows about Keystone. That decision is not really in Canadian hands. Energy East looks less likely ...

Here is one of what will be many stories. So, start with some facts and probabilities. Northern Gateway is dead. That’s a piece of good news. Line 3 nobody heard of until today, so who knows? Also, who knows about Keystone. That decision is not really in Canadian hands. Energy East looks less likely ...

Wednesday, November 16, 2016 West Coast Staff Counsel Eugene Kung sat down with Senior Communications and Engagement Specialist Alexis Stoymenoff to discuss the recent report released by the Ministerial Panel on the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tankers project. Here’s what Eugene had to say about the report, and the six key questions it poses in ...

PHOTOS: “Bernard the Roughneck,” Neal Bernard Hancock, addresses the media in Ottawa in this screenshot of the CBC’s tape of his interview. Below: Mr. Hancock at the same event with Mark Scholz, president of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors, David Lefebvre, director of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association (which the CAODC describes ...

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 The warmth and relative freedom of summer creates an atmosphere of spontaneity and often last-minute plans come together: “Let’s drive to that pow-wow this weekend!” “Who wants to go to the beach for a picnic this afternoon?” “Come to the Vancouver Folk Festival and visit our WCEL table!” Summer 2016 is ...

Tuesday, May 24, 2016 It has been yet another whirlwind month on the Kinder Morgan file. Staff Counsel Eugene Kung takes us through six milestones from the month of May, ranging from a trip to "oil's heartland" in Texas to last week's unsurprising, yet disappointing NEB recommendation. Kinder Morgan AGM Photo credit: Reuben George (via ...

The impact of this decision tosses the ‘Equivalency Agreement’ with the highly suspect and biased National Energy Board back into the province’s lap. Earlier this month, B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) officially notified the Read more…

PHOTOS: Actor David Suchet as Agatha Christie’s imaginary Hercule Poirot. Below: Postmedia Alberta Frankenpaper political columnist Lorne Gunter, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Alberta Prosperity Fund President Barry McNamar and the late Spiro T. Agnew, who is thought by some scholars to be the worst vice-president in U.S. history. This tale of ...